The Corporation, by Mark Achbar, Jennifer Aboot, & Joel Bakan, 2003
The Corporation argues that if we are to assume that a corporation is a person, then we must also assume that they are psychopaths. The film systematically goes down the checklist for the diagnosis of psychopaths, and cites many case studies and examples of how various corporations fit the model. By the end of the movie, the author finishes the diagnosis of the most profitable model of business corporations today, and concludes that the corporation is in fact an inherently psychotic system.
The Corporation divides up the film into segments, each focusing on a specific trait of a psychopath, and breaking down the various flaws of a corporation. Although the film did not give specific scientific sources to show the unsustainability of corporations, there were plenty of case studies of corporations strong arming governments, ignoring the rights of individuals, and showing no strings of morals fiber in its fabricated body. I feel the film does a good job of giving the viewer a feeling that although they are being exploited, and they should feel wronged, that they are not powerless, and that it is still possible to fix this issue. This feeling of hope that the video leaves you with after delivering the feeling that you were wronged enables the viewer to leave the film and go and do something productive, and go out and solve the problem.
The Corporation focuses most strongly on the behavioral aspects of corporations, and how these behaviors lead it to be unsustainable. The film gives examples, however, of how these behaviors are unsustainable by citing specific political aspects, such as the attempted coup on President Roosevelt, economic aspects, such as with the growing gap between the wealthy and the poor, media and informational aspects, with the spreading of disinformation and the censoring of news and findings, and organizational aspects of sustainability problem with the discussion on how there does not currently exist a way to place the blame on any one person and to pin down the responsibilities of a corporation.
Perhaps the most shocking statistic shown was that between 1890 and 1910 that out of 370 cases concerning the 14th Amendment, 288 were brought by corporations and only 19 by were by African Americans. This perversion of something that I was raised and taught in grade school to believe was a salvation to an entire group of people, into something that was used to create a system that is being shown today to be corrupt, and filled with malicious profit seeking methods, was very effective at pointing out a great case study of the exploitation of the law that corporations get away with in our society. This shocking fact also gets to what seems to be the root of the problem shown in the film, which is that we gave corporations the right to buy and sell, to function as a person, and in fact, a person based entirely on profit. Another great example from the video is all of the research and documentation on the Monsanto milk hormone, which caused so much adverse effects for a profit gain which only benefits the Monsanto Corporation, and is not a win-win situation, but is in fact a lose-lose-lose-win, with the only winners being Monsanto, and everyone else involved loses out. The amount of information they covered up and deceived the public was just astounding. Until this video, I had trust that the federal regulations we had put in place were honored or at least enforced, and to find out that corporations make it standard practice to lie, cheat, and deceive the public by deceiving the federal regulators though loopholes or just by blatantly breaking the law. The film did well to convince me the idea of corporations as people is a flawed system, and did so in a way that I could not find any flaws. However, the solutions were not strongly presented. The film weakly presented the argument that the solution lies in dismantling the corporations as a person would fix the problem, which I see as a realistic solution. The solution that seemed to be presented alternatively to this was going to almost a full publicly owned system of business, which still does not seem like a good idea, and was not strongly argued. A society that is run by businesses, rather than a society that runs businesses, is definitely a problem, but having the government control every aspect of business would lead to just as much issues as there are today.
This film is targeted mostly to the North American citizens, but also targets any industrialized nation that deals with any of these global corporations. The focus on American and Canadian based corporations as the case studies makes the film limited in its target to those that could relate to the issue. However the secondary target audience is anyone who is affected by these international corporations, which includes everyone in the world who buys their products. The film best addresses North American consumers who live and work with these corporations, and have the power to change the way system works.
The film has a very good educational value, and has indeed taught me a great deal about corporations, and has enabled me to be able to hold a conversation on corporations and corporate greed. Perhaps the biggest critique of this film would be that it dragged on a little bit towards the end, and it could perhaps have been trimmed down to a 2 hour film, instead of a 3 hour film. A film that drags on too long causes the reader to lose interest and makes the film end weaker than it would have been if it was more concise. However, I could not pick out any specific areas that could be cut out of the film still have it stronger then it was originally.
The film finishes with strong stories demonstrating the power of people to change a corporation and fight against the goliaths. The film finishes strongly with examples of corporations, such as Interface, that are at least trying to do things in the public interest, and people rising up and refusing to yield to the power of the corporations, such as the farmers in India that refuse to follow the laws that would have them not save seeds. The power of people to change laws and fix corporations, so they no longer work for personal gain of their stockholders, but for the public good, and the health of all the people who are affected by these actions. I sought additional information on the Monsanto milk hormone, and tried to find if the milk I was drinking, in fact came from treated cows. My results did not come up with any solid results, so my decision was to stop drinking milk unless I could actually go up the farmer and ask them personally. I also viewed the various websites cited at the end of the film, including: hare.org, business-humanrights.org, publiccitezen,org, schoolcomercilism.org, maketradefair.com, and corporatewatch.org.
The Corporation argues that if we are to assume that a corporation is a person, then we must also assume that they are psychopaths. The film systematically goes down the checklist for the diagnosis of psychopaths, and cites many case studies and examples of how various corporations fit the model. By the end of the movie, the author finishes the diagnosis of the most profitable model of business corporations today, and concludes that the corporation is in fact an inherently psychotic system.
The Corporation divides up the film into segments, each focusing on a specific trait of a psychopath, and breaking down the various flaws of a corporation. Although the film did not give specific scientific sources to show the unsustainability of corporations, there were plenty of case studies of corporations strong arming governments, ignoring the rights of individuals, and showing no strings of morals fiber in its fabricated body. I feel the film does a good job of giving the viewer a feeling that although they are being exploited, and they should feel wronged, that they are not powerless, and that it is still possible to fix this issue. This feeling of hope that the video leaves you with after delivering the feeling that you were wronged enables the viewer to leave the film and go and do something productive, and go out and solve the problem.
The Corporation focuses most strongly on the behavioral aspects of corporations, and how these behaviors lead it to be unsustainable. The film gives examples, however, of how these behaviors are unsustainable by citing specific political aspects, such as the attempted coup on President Roosevelt, economic aspects, such as with the growing gap between the wealthy and the poor, media and informational aspects, with the spreading of disinformation and the censoring of news and findings, and organizational aspects of sustainability problem with the discussion on how there does not currently exist a way to place the blame on any one person and to pin down the responsibilities of a corporation.
Perhaps the most shocking statistic shown was that between 1890 and 1910 that out of 370 cases concerning the 14th Amendment, 288 were brought by corporations and only 19 by were by African Americans. This perversion of something that I was raised and taught in grade school to believe was a salvation to an entire group of people, into something that was used to create a system that is being shown today to be corrupt, and filled with malicious profit seeking methods, was very effective at pointing out a great case study of the exploitation of the law that corporations get away with in our society. This shocking fact also gets to what seems to be the root of the problem shown in the film, which is that we gave corporations the right to buy and sell, to function as a person, and in fact, a person based entirely on profit.
Another great example from the video is all of the research and documentation on the Monsanto milk hormone, which caused so much adverse effects for a profit gain which only benefits the Monsanto Corporation, and is not a win-win situation, but is in fact a lose-lose-lose-win, with the only winners being Monsanto, and everyone else involved loses out. The amount of information they covered up and deceived the public was just astounding. Until this video, I had trust that the federal regulations we had put in place were honored or at least enforced, and to find out that corporations make it standard practice to lie, cheat, and deceive the public by deceiving the federal regulators though loopholes or just by blatantly breaking the law.
The film did well to convince me the idea of corporations as people is a flawed system, and did so in a way that I could not find any flaws. However, the solutions were not strongly presented. The film weakly presented the argument that the solution lies in dismantling the corporations as a person would fix the problem, which I see as a realistic solution. The solution that seemed to be presented alternatively to this was going to almost a full publicly owned system of business, which still does not seem like a good idea, and was not strongly argued. A society that is run by businesses, rather than a society that runs businesses, is definitely a problem, but having the government control every aspect of business would lead to just as much issues as there are today.
This film is targeted mostly to the North American citizens, but also targets any industrialized nation that deals with any of these global corporations. The focus on American and Canadian based corporations as the case studies makes the film limited in its target to those that could relate to the issue. However the secondary target audience is anyone who is affected by these international corporations, which includes everyone in the world who buys their products. The film best addresses North American consumers who live and work with these corporations, and have the power to change the way system works.
The film has a very good educational value, and has indeed taught me a great deal about corporations, and has enabled me to be able to hold a conversation on corporations and corporate greed. Perhaps the biggest critique of this film would be that it dragged on a little bit towards the end, and it could perhaps have been trimmed down to a 2 hour film, instead of a 3 hour film. A film that drags on too long causes the reader to lose interest and makes the film end weaker than it would have been if it was more concise. However, I could not pick out any specific areas that could be cut out of the film still have it stronger then it was originally.
The film finishes with strong stories demonstrating the power of people to change a corporation and fight against the goliaths. The film finishes strongly with examples of corporations, such as Interface, that are at least trying to do things in the public interest, and people rising up and refusing to yield to the power of the corporations, such as the farmers in India that refuse to follow the laws that would have them not save seeds. The power of people to change laws and fix corporations, so they no longer work for personal gain of their stockholders, but for the public good, and the health of all the people who are affected by these actions.
I sought additional information on the Monsanto milk hormone, and tried to find if the milk I was drinking, in fact came from treated cows. My results did not come up with any solid results, so my decision was to stop drinking milk unless I could actually go up the farmer and ask them personally. I also viewed the various websites cited at the end of the film, including: hare.org, business-humanrights.org, publiccitezen,org, schoolcomercilism.org, maketradefair.com, and corporatewatch.org.